Trancers Hexalogy
Trancers (1985)Tim 'king of the sci-fi B-movie' Thomerson is again in yet another time travelling sci-fi flick and again he's a cop with a really good name...meet 'Jack Deth'.
Yep another cracker alright
this film makes Pyun's films look megabudget and the acting top class, there really isn't much I can be positive about here, its not even enjoyable as a daft B-movie like 'dollman'. Terrible 'effects' with dreadful acting and some almost 'Ed Wood' style moments of corn and action, plus the plot is stupid and incomprehensible at times. Look out for Helen Hunt and Thomerson with dark hair! amazingly Thomerson acted in another four more of these with Helen Hunt.
Trancers II: The Return of Jack Deth (1991)Holy crapola Batman this is.....errr crapola! after the quite dreary first film we somehow got this quite dreadful sequel that pretty much scrapes the bottom of the barrel alright. Thomerson is back as 'Deth' again for some reason, obviously needing work and Helen Hunt is also back for a cameo as she's realised to get out.
The plot is totally muddled and all over the show, there is quite a nice sci-fi plot deep down in there somewhere (touch of 'Terminator' time jumping in the mix) but its being totally buried under a rotting B-movie. Laughable 'effects', terrible 'acting' really bad sets and props plus virtually no costumes what so ever haha looks like Thomerson wore his own clothes. I might add the exploding ham scene was so bad it was brilliant.
Only Thomerson gives any reason to watch a tall, he can't save the film but he does inject a tiny amount of fun with his dry harsh tough guy performance
'Don't worry, ladies. They're biodegradable'
Trancers III: Deth Lives (1992)Getting alittle better after the dreadful second film yet still highly cheap and nasty with laughable everything hehe. This time 'Deth' does have a rather neat partner in the form of a large android called 'Shark' who actually looks pretty sweet with his fish/fin mask, not brilliant makeup effects but its nice looking and different. The special ops training and fighting camp are really bad in this haha some great fake looking fighting and bad stunts work a treat in making this hilarious when its not really suppose to be.
Still chasing Trancers all over time n space Thomerson is witty as ever and on top form with his tough guy persona which still manages to make me smile despite the utter crudness going on all around haha I dunno why Thomerson keeps doing these but he is the main attraction for sure. The first two films seemed to be semi serious but this third film definitely shows everyone is having a good time making it as it vies towards an 'Evil Dead' formula with plenty of wise cracks and visual tomfoolery.
Trancers IV: Jack of Swords (aka. Journeys Through the Dark Zone, 1994)Number four and back down we go, the roller coaster continues with Jack Deth and his adventures through time, this time its back to dreadful trashy B-movie without any amusing trashy charm hehe
Thomerson is still firing the wisecracks but the medieval setting for this is really bad looking, this kind of location can either work and look quite good or not work and look real bad, this is the latter. Everyone is running around what looks like some local woods (you expect to see them run into a car park half the time lol!) around a Romanian castle but you can tell which are sets or real, lots of really iffy looking fights and weapon usage and a really cheesy baddie at the top of the tree.
Plot wise its getting abit messy and horrendously corny and cliched...actually I kinda lost the plot to be honest, too many characters and little sub plots going on with rather messy direction and cutting, still it doesn't matter as you know Deth will win somehow
Trancers V: Sudden Deth (1994)Hmm this is just the same film as number four basically, they have made one long film and cut it in two but as this isn't too long they have filled about the first six/seven minutes with backstory from the last film! weak.
So its the same again with the same people and the same baddie leader who conveniently comes back from the dead to be the baddie leader in this film again lol! So if you read my review of number four you will get an idea for number five, identical stuff at a run time of 1hour 14min!!
Trancers VI: Life After Deth (2002)With the loss of Thomerson this franchise dies and this final film shows it. A cast of nobodies in a D-Movie if not lower with home video style effects, action and acting coupled with the exact same run of the mill plot. They even crowbarred in footage of Thomerson as 'Deth' at the start making us believe hes in the film albeit for about three min, bad move as that always comes across as phoney eg. many Bruce Lee films after he died.
Gone are all the cool witty wise cracks from Deth with that classic tough guy flair which always gave these films a tiny edge.
